I travelled to China last week on business. The week before I was very heavily occupied with trip preparations; at the same time it had dawned on me that my achilles tendons are not improving so it is time for a full-stop rest to allow the tendonitis to heal and the inflammation cycle to settle down. I am now into a 2 week full stop rest. I need now to discipline myself not to massage the achilles- just let it be.
If ever I had to pick a week to NOT be running this was it. Here is a lovely sunrise near I was staying last week in China:
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| Sunrise with PM2.5 in excess of 170ug/m^3 |
And a late afternoon view from my hotel....no, that is NOT mountain mist. The PM2.5 level was greater than 170ug/m3 the whole time I was there. This is 6 times the safe 24 limit according to US standards. You do feel it- its like breathing cigarette smoke.
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| Late afternoon view from my hotel |
The last time I had an achilles tendonitis I took a full rest for 4-5 months and was able to resume running. A hard lesson in 2004 was to stop fiddling with it: No more cross frictions etc. Back then (in 2004) I had kept the injury alive for several months by doing various self-massage treatments and trying to run at a low level.
The impulse to "take control" and force the darned thing to heal - by massaging the heck out of it-- is very powerful (in me) but the reality is that I know from experience that these measures prolong the inflammation. It is now time for me to surrender to the process of healing. I'll post how it goes. My plan is to take a solid 4 week break...or until there is no pain when I pinch the tendon. Then re-start and ramp back up very gradually.
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